Vengeance among the Green(es) and Grime(s): Lilly Caul's Comeuppance
by Quillon42
Summary: In this story based on TWD comics and novels, Lilly Caul arguably gets what's coming to her, from a certain mother and child, for acts she committed before escaping the prison...an escape made largely on the strength of blaming the Governor for what she did with her own two hands. (I'm NOT defending the Governor here...I'm just having the real victims dole out a bit of justice).


VENGEANCE AMONG THE GREEN(ES) AND GRIME(S): LILLY CAUL GETS HER COMEUPPANCE

By Quillon42

(NB: There is a walker, who was once a very prominent character in TWD, who talks in this story. Also there are walkers who show that they still exist after suffering headshots. I know that under the rules in this world, the dead only walk and do not talk here, and that they are supposed to be "done" after getting shot in the head; I'm using license, that's all).

Chasing along backroads and byways had been the name of the game, these past few hours, for the roustabout known as Lilly Caul. Despite her resolve, none of her brazen blazing along any of these trails had afforded purchase, not this evening. After considering it a mite longer, the lady finally decided, after having led along for several hours the wayward stragglers of (what was in this reality) an utterly-burned-down-Woodbury, that she would quit and turn in for the evening at the first semblance of shelter she could find.

The closest such haven that the leading lady could hit upon in these untoward outdoors was a small set of greenhouses, about six in total, for the baker's dozen of terrorized townsfolk to take up for the night. The twelve other than Lilly herself had split off into twos and threes among five of the structures, leaving the last one all to herself—a prize of privacy bestowed upon by her followers, in a sense. This gift was gleaned by Miss Caul out of respect by the others for at least the chance she preached had existed out there, out someplace in the unalive Georgian ether…a chance she crowed about only seconds after deposing a despotic leader with a gunshot to the back of his brain.

_And that,_ the thought pestered as she did all she could to settle into her small, glassy botanical bungalow, _had happened only minutes after the same kind of hot lead was laid upon…_

_ …upon…_

In all honesty, it wasn't her fault, Lilly kept assuring herself all these hours since the incident occurred. She stared at a sullen onyx sky as the spiel unspooled itself through her mind once more. Those two, the lady and the baby she brought down…there was no way, no way in hell that those killings could be brought upon her head. After all, it was Blake who told her to do it, the Woodbury incumbent who issued the order to "Kill them all," the Governor who goaded her on.

Really; it wasn't as if…as if it were anything volitional, on Lilly's part, at the time. Her leader had just served as the operator, and she the innocent instrument, for the violence that was performed upon both mother and child.

Caul smiled to herself sheepishly with these tenuous reassurances as she did her best to settle, doing all she could to make her leafy environs as cozy as she could. The emptiness of the ebony expanse above her did nothing to calm her; rather than act as an additional blanket, in fact, it only served to loom above, an ocean of black bile threatening to wash over the woman entirely with guilt for what was done.

She tossed to and fro, hearing the distant moans of the supposed-to-be-deceased, wondering how the others along with her now were managing with all this slumber-slaughtering noise. Despite everything within her fighting against the impulse, the tiniest part of her within still converted the highest of the distance's cries into those of what that infant must have emitted, she so terrified in that woman's arms, as the pair was running off…the Governor, surely the Governor butchering the baby and her mother through the gun that was fired off by Lilly's finger. Certainly it wasn't the lady herself who perpetrated this atrocity.

No matter. Everything would be absolved when tomorrow would arrive and a new settlement was made. Lilly would be the new leader and make a new place for herself as well as all those who accompanied her, an Elysium among the undead, all very replete with democracy and other such civilized delights. And upon accomplishing this, she would no longer

[BANG]

be bothered as she so surely was now by the

[BANNNG]

reportings of roaring ordinance through her head, of guns going off, of

[BANNNNNGGG]

of mothers sluiced in twain by brutal bullets and falling face-first to the floor with recently-delivered children crushed underneath them as they fell…

_ [BANNNG!]_

Lilly looked up.

Realized that the boorish bangings just now were not brought on by the volleys of violent pistols, but rather by the insistent, intermittent almost-closings of the translucent door to her transparent little safehouse. The hinged barrier beat and beat, ever so cadenced against a metal lintel above, prompting the Woodbury refugee to up and silence it. Gritting her teeth against the inability to find any iota of peace, in this fallout from her de facto coup against the warlord of Woodbury, Lilly hunched herself up off the ground and shambled over towards the entrance to the meager harbor.

It was odd, Caul remarked to herself as she attempted again and again, without success, to secure the door. It didn't seem to be broken when she entered. The lady set her hands as hard as she could, gripped the glass gate's handle as tightly as she had held the gun in her hand yesterday at the prison—once more, a weapon surely fired off by the grace of Governor and nothing else. The girl grunted against the refusal of the panel to give in and settle, she heaving all she could, she setting a hand against the doorway's side as she worked.

Just as it was a pair of bystanders brought down by bullets, it was after two thrusts against the glassy gate that the grasp of that familiar stranger seized her, the putrid palm clamping down upon Lilly's wrist.

Then the young woman found herself launched suddenly backward, bounding back hard against the greenhouse dirt. She cussed, more out of confusion than anger; then she cast her gaze upward once more to behold that blown-away-lady-and-babe from before, the two now fully decked out in decay, they swaddled in rot even though it still was not twenty-four hours since that single shot shucked them both off the mortal coil.

Given that Lilly had not slept…had not closed an eyelid for more than ten seconds straight since her exodus from the pogrom at the prison, she had the instant inclination here that what was before her was merely a phantasm planted within her subconscious. Whisking her eyelids tightly shut and gritting bitterly, she fought against what must have been nothing more than a nightmare in front of her; she defied it mentally, did all she could to exorcise it from the vicinity, mustered all energies to will herself awake.

But

[WAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH

UUUGGGUUUGGGHHH

WAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH]

the insistent, undeadly semi-guttural wailing of the inhuman infant just a yard or two away…this abominable squalling convinced Lilly that there was no other plane of existence to which she could escape. A cerebral cocktail of all-engulfing fear and ever-growing guilt within the girl was what kept her more rooted to this greenhouse floor than any of the legions of cornstalks were moored to the grounds immediately outside.

At least for the moment, Lilly Caul could do naught more than look upon the mother monster with her incubaby in tow…the two innocents erased by the effects of one gunshot…

…both of whom in life had gone by the name of Grimes.

"It took the two of us a good while to finally catch up to you," the once-lovely Lori began, her formerly appealing, oblong features distorted now into a deformed unclassifiable misshape. As she spoke, the wretched, erstwhile-woman fixed a vindictive sneer upon the lady living, lying upon the floor. "Of course, neither the baby nor I ever lost track of your smell the entire time…it just took us a while, what with my darling daughter's innards continuously falling out and such…

"Honestly, when you get down to it, though…at the end of the night…it's hard to efface the putrid odor of _murder._"

What lay on the housing's grimy foundation now, to which the vengeful revenant and her death-chilled child were now addressing, was a woman worn through with remorse, a Lilly gilded over with guilt. In the past score of hours, the would-be Woodbury survivor had more thoughts of the slaughter wrought upon these who hapless civilians than she had breaths course through her body in that same span. In truth, so long had Rick's wife and kid cluttered the forefront of Caul's cranium that she almost again ignored the pair before her—for an instant, she was certain they must have been another manifestation of the poltergeists that pursued her since the penitentiary fell.

But when Lilly looked away for the tiniest stint, she found herself not settling into a reality of far safer solitude, but rather…

"You fucking _LOOK AT ME WHEN I AM TALKING TO YOU!"_

And then the former Governor flunky shunted her eyes back toward the source of her torment, truly there in the foulest, fallowest of flesh.

"I didn'…" sputtered Lilly with a spurt of protest, "I didn't mean to…"

"Didn't mean to what," Lori lashed back. "Didn't mean to put me and mine up between your crosshairs? Didn't mean to _fire away_ and _blow the fuck out of half a family?!"_

A twofold pressure of crushing contrition and some kind of preternatural psychokinesis weighed down excruciatingly on the escapee from the hoosegow holocaust. As hard-headed as she was, she dared to try once more. "The…The Governor…"

And then Lori's features contorted into a rictus of rage. "…gave the order," finished the Ghost-Grimes, "but the one who _executed_ it…the one who followed through with a hail of fire…was the one who is now shuddering…simpering…shrinking right here before me."

The unliving Lori then leaned back a second, after which she whipped forward, wielding a Ruger in hand that was all too real and familiar to Lilly. She reached for a space behind her, where she was sure she left her weapons a short spell ago, and felt only the grime of the ground in their place.

Peering at the stomach of the supine survivor, the vocal, vindictive walker once more:

"Aww, did you lose a child yourself? Did you happen to _miscarry?"_

While dead people _told_ no tales, in this reality at least it was certainly the case that they had the time to _hear_ every human being's story as it unspooled. As such, Lori knew the gory details of Lilly's ill-fated prenatal ordeal, with even greater particularity than Miss Caul herself.

"Was it anything like the…literal mis-carrying of my own infant daughter that I went through, as I clutched the babe in my arms ever so desperately while trying to get away from gunning fuckers like yourself?!" A demonically-dealt chortle choked the air.

"I gotta tell ya, Lilly-girl, it's awfully hard to transport a pint-sized piece of flesh and blood in your arms with a slug of lead just…_tearing_ on through your intestines."

Lilly flinched at the graphic description, as well as the moniker "Lilly-girl" which only few folks called her…people such as Bob Stookey (who in this reality was the old, white Bob…not the young black one of the television show or this author's "Prune" story he just put up).

At Caul's ankles, the mother-smothered undead infant clapped her baby-hands crudely at Lori's vengeful address. Then, after a beat the babe crawled, lifted a tiny hand, began to place it atop a quivering, living toe pertaining to the wearied Woodbury warrior nearby…when of a sudden

"Don't touch that…!"

the toddler's attention was taken was waylaid by the one who ushered her into this world…

"…that meat's _spoiled."_

and at this the little one relented, slithered in her pitiful semi-flesh towards her mommy once more.

Lori looked down lovingly at her little girl, as animated in her expiration as she herself was. Then, shifting back abruptly towards Lilly, and starting to take steps in the direction of the living lady:

"And did you lose a boyfriend in your struggles, my dear?

With condescension, Mrs. Grimes hunched down harshly, tapped against Lilly's forehead lightly, mockingly with the Ruger.

"Did we wose somwun we wuvved so vewwy, vewwy much?!"

At this point of proximity, the latter could smell, inhale, _osmose_ the undead un-dame's filthy fumes as they were expelled out of her decomposing modicum of a mouth.

Whispering now, the Deputy's darling wife: "I lost a guy of my own, too…yeah! My very own husband."

Lilly watched as Lori nodded her head mockingly with her next line, in a similar manner as a Claiming cad doing the same to Daryl on a country road, in another reality, as said cad introduced himself at bowpoint as Joe.

"And you know how I lost him, Lilly?"

Six or seven seconds later, at the exact instant that Lilly mustered up the courage to try and look into Lori's eyes…punctuated by a pistol-whip to the kisser by Lori as the latter wailed into the former's face:

"By GETTING FUCKING_ KILLED!"_

While Caul was reeling still from the strike delivered upon her by the necrotic nightmare, Carl's mother made toward her baby once again, the mangled matron turning her ruined right hand over and over as she reached her child.

"Do the trick for the bad lady!" she prompted, speeding up her quivering hand motion as she spoke so the kid could get the message. "Go on! Show her that thing you like to do for Mommy!"

And then, in the line of Lilly's pain-wracked, woozy vision, she beheld the baby first on all fours…

[SSSHHHHHHNNNNNTTTTTT]

then _flattening_ as pancakily as she possibly could.

_"There we go, _Judy!"

The little one remained inert on the cold ground a small spell, lying there as a puddle of putrefaction for perhaps about a minute. In this time, the Woodbury woman realized fully the destruction she dealt upon these two defenseless would-be jailbreakers.

Then, worse than the return of any wretch from the grave, those same, condemning words that Lilly gave the Governor were launched back fully into her face.

"LOOK WHAT YOU MADE ME DO, LILLY CAUL! GETTING CUT IN HALF BY GUNFIRE AND FALLING RIGHT DOWN UPON MY JUDY!

"JUST LOOK, GOD DAMN YOU!

"A MOTHER AND HER LITTLE BABY!

"_LOOK WHAT YOU MADE ME FUCKING DO!"_

And those words, they in truth wreaked more damage upon the Woodbury refugee than any of the pain she had felt before in her life…

…or even any of the agony that she was imminently to experience.

Just at the moment when Lilly was about to lose her mind, in addition to any semblance of a lunch within her stiff frame…

[SSPPPLLLLLOOOOOPPPPP!]

Baby Grimes gathered herself, basically inflated back into becoming the full-time ill, unalive imitation of an infant that she now was.

Lilly tried to curl up at this last, she wishing so badly to half-cringe, half-cry herself into oblivion. But the unearthly hold that Lori had on her pretermitted this.

With this momentum, in fact, said nonliving lady, she paced maddeningly back and forth now, amongst the ten-foot stretch of the greenhouse length:

"Tweren't no fucking _Governor,_ what butchered me and my baby girl! Tweren't no patch-faced poser…_NO MA'AM!"_

Then, pointing punishingly at the miserable figure mewling on the ground: "It was _you, Lilly Caul, _what killed the two of us…it was _YOU_…

"…you sympathy-scamming, protagonist-pretending _PISSANT."_

And then, at last, amidst all the wailing of the wife of Grimes…Lilly felt the

[SCRUUUNNNNNCCCCCHHHHHH]

"AAAAAAAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!"

pincer-teeth of the passed-away, the jowls of various ghouls dressed in overalls and other farming effects, as some of those who made Old Man Hershel most proud…those such as Patricia, Otis, Billy, and Lacey…despite the headshots suffered by some, they all commencing now to chomp upon the Caul from toes to knees.

_"SEE?!"_ shrieked Lori amidst the orgy of eats. She smiled smugly as she watched her own people get what they sought for so long. "I promised you Greene folk pig's feet…and, all in a little house fitting to yer family name…y'all got a whole fucking _sow_ to snack on! _Toldj'all_ we'd all get to where we were headed!"

The feeding frenzy was abominable, but only par for the course of comeuppance for a murderess whose crime was so conveniently cast off and rationalized away. Over the course of the diners' din, Lori once more:

"Don't worry, Lilly-girl! Ya don't have to feel singled out on this 'er nothin.' Yer other stalwarts…we did them in the dark, just minutes ago…

"Billy 'specially here…he felt great gettin' up on that Smitty fellow, done did him in then dismissed it with nothin' more than a 'Whatever' to the Governor…"

Out of the corner of a shitless-scared eye, Lilly noted that the other greenhouses had taken on quite the tinge of red since last she looked upon them, an hour or so ago.

She looked back into the vicinity of her immediate surroundings as the horrible hostess went on. "But _you,_ you life-curtailin' cuss…fer the noooook-you-lar fishin' you foisted upon a family...kin split up through slaughter, just like the Greenes here…we all done saved the worst for last."

The unthinkable eating went on for about another minute and a half or so…

Then, after only so many fierce beats of feast on the frau…

…the most cruel consumers only made it as far as the kneecaps…

…then stopped, after an abrupt raise of a rot-wracked hand by Lori.

In a delirium of disbelief and agony, Lilly noted in earshot

[THRSSSSSHHHHHH]

the depositing of something soft and delicate just behind her. Frightened at an idea that her incarceration-exhumed visitors just dropped the deceased infant right near her head to feast on, the girl turned…

…only to find a small assortment of flora bundled there, mainly of two varieties.

"Although we were hot on your heels, you hussy," boomed Lori once more, "we took a few to pick some choice selections, both fitting for your final moments.

"There's daisies there, ironically given their sunniness…but also appropriately, of course, given the fact that you're about to push some right the fuck up.

"Then…I'm sure the other variety, you readily recognize…"

Indeed, the foreboding blooms were unmistakable: they were the kind of blossom after which the lady herself was named. Taken to signify purity, or chastity at times…

…but often accompanying caskets at funerals as well—heralding as such, on many occasions, the event of a death.

"You like to _kill little girls,_ Lizzie…oh, sorry…I meant Lilly. (What with this decomposed jaw of mine, silly old Missus Grimes and her slips of the tongue…)"

As Caul continued to stare at the specimens of her nature's namesake, the cold barrel of her Ruger, wielded by an even cold hands, at the back of the Woodburyer's head.

"That's it, now.

_ "Just look at the fuckin' flowers."_

[BLAAAMMMMM]

One shot from behind, just as Lilly perpetrated against the Governor, to propel the victim's eye from its mooring…and then

[BLAAAMMMMM]

…the same for the other socket, one each for the two Grimes lives in total, they most directly culled from none other than the Caul.

Under Lori's orders, enough of the body was kept intact for her to kick several times, out of frustration and rage for what had happened to her and her child. Eventually she dragged the corpse out in front of the greenhouse from which it came, giving it one more boot towards the others in her cadaver cadre.

"Here…for those of you who didn't quite sate your appetites with the others from the Governor's town."

Then about ten minutes thereafter, once Caul was picked clean.

"C'mon. Follow me."

And from there the Deputy's lady led her undead group of stragglers to found their own fine, fortified settlement, at which no animated carcasses, anarchic cannibals, or any other antagonistic cads otherwise could ever take them down.

And far from this civil success lay the remains of someone who might have founded such a place herself, had she not sloughed off responsibility for slaughter…and was now consequently brought low, where she belonged, for what she wrought.

Because empowerment doesn't equate to impunity.

AFTERWORD

I've been wanting to write this one for a long time. This story might have been upsetting to some people, but in this case, at least, I don't care. I will begin, as I have in other commentary after some of my other stories, by saying that I do support empowerment of female characters generally. However, I cannot condone such empowerment without there being a sense of accountability accompanying it.

I am NOT, through this story, trying to defend the Governor; he was an evil, disgusting bastard who committed several unthinkable atrocities. He got what he deserved in the end by dying as he killed.

I am ALSO NOT, through this story, necessarily waving a flag for Lori and her daughter; I'm not by any means overly invested in either character between mother and child (although both were likeable, of course, while they were alive).

What drove me to write this story was the outrage I felt at the fact that, in the wake of so many stories that are out there today, such as Hunger Games (at least the first book), Marvel's miniseries Avengers vs. X-Men, and The Walking Dead—in which we parenthetically have so many one-sided conflicts between "the" main female hero and "the" main male villain, which I'll briefly mention again below—in TWD story we have a story wherein we have such a female protagonist (per the novels especially) through Lilly Caul, who apparently can get away with murder—slaughtering a parent and child, no less—and completely slough off responsibility for it, because she was taking orders from "the" male villain. According to the logic of this, therefore, it's okay for a female character to be absolved for an atrocity she committed with her own two hands because some evil man wanted it done. That, to me, is utter bullshit (as in "objectionable," not as in "untrue" here).

I can respect female characters who do take responsibility for horrors they have committed. Carol from the TV Walking Dead series is a cardinal example of this. (SPOILERS FOR THE SHOW HERE): In Season Four, she kills Karen and David as a precaution so that others do not get as sick as those two…and although her identity as the "euthanizer," in a sense, goes unrevealed to the one who would be most vindictive (i.e. Tyreese, who cared deeply for Karen)…eventually Carol confesses the killings to Tyreese, and even goes so far as to give him a gun and tell him that he "should do what he has to do." Admirably, Tyreese forgives her here…but even more admirably, IMO, Carol admitted her crimes (END SPOILERS).

Such is the diametric opposite of what went down with Lilly. In the comics, her character exists for two seconds as a deus ex machina contrivance/as a plot device to have the Governor die as he killed. Because she is only a plot device (as she disappears and is never seen again thereafter), she not only gets away with killing someone reprehensible, such as the Governor, with no repercussions against her…she also, again, gets away with butchering an innocent parent and a child because "the Governor made her do it." Again, that's bullshit (as in "objectionable").

The TWD novels are even worse IMO. There, Lilly is elevated to some kind of "cannot do anything wrong ever" Mary Sue savior (on Page 80 of the hardcover version of the "Fall of the Governor Part One," for example, it's related that her kiss upon her boyfriend Austin's cheek is like his "being christened with holy water"), and she stands characterwise in direct opposition to the Governor, who has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. The "Fall of the Governor Part Two" novel goes so far as to put in some bullshit mistake-of-fact that during the prison melee, Lilly thought that Lori was carrying a bomb or some other weapon, instead of a baby. Then Lilly kills Lori and her daughter, kills the Governor, and goes off and becomes the new leader of the Woodburyans, without her answering at all for what she did. Instead, she gets to "pay it forward" by being a good leader in the future. Whatever it takes to sugarcoat a killing she did with her own two hands. As far as I'm concerned, future leadership of Woodbury (and SPOILERS again—her putting Penny to rest and disposing of the aquarium heads as well; END SPOILERS)), it's all not enough of a penance—and it's what prompted me to write the story above.

Lilly could have done a number of other things. She could have refused the orders given her by the Governor and escaped on her own. She could have shot the Governor before killing a parent and child. But no; again, it ends up being "I can accept power coming to me, but when it comes to taking responsibility for what I did, that falls to someone else." I SWEAR to you that if it were a _male_ character who killed a mother and child, there is no way in FUCK that the karmic/cosmic forces at work would have allowed him to get out of there; he would have been fucking TOAST. Basically what it all amounts to is that in some vague haze of feminist empowerment now, one can get away with murder—be it of the guilty as well as of the innocent.

All I'm saying is that I cannot respect female heroes/heroines as much as male ones if the females do not end up taking the bad with the good. Again, I have a TON of respect for Carol Peletier on the TWD show, in contrast, because she owns up to what she did. Also I admit that there have been male bastards in stories that do not get comeuppance either—and to be fair, I have served them as well: see my "Polarized Patricide" or my "Feed N' Slake" stories for this (ALSO see final paragraph below for Update regarding hopeful January 2015 Rick comeuppance story). Anyway, it just irked me here that, whether as a plot device in the comics or as a protagonist savior in the novels, Lilly never had the comeuppance that I believe she should have received. When you consider that karmic/cosmic shit goes down ALL THE TIME in TWD (witness most recently (AGAIN, SPOILERS) when Sam gets karmic/cosmic comeuppance in "No Sanctuary" by being butchered by cannibals, for apparently abandoning Ana in "Indifference"; END SPOILERS))—it's bullshit to me that Lilly can go ahead and kill the guilty and the innocent and not only get away with it, but also be elevated as God's gift to the survivors of Georgia (in the novels at least).

As a closing note also, I will say also that I'm sick and tired of these one-sided stories wherein there is a male villain who can do no right, and a female hero(ine) who can do no wrong. As a male myself, I support female empowerment generally; however, I cannot just thunderously applaud the utter emasculation of my gender through these recent stories. Again to be fair (and not to be one-sided myself, in my argument), there have been stories in the past wherein there is a male who is "the" hero and a female who is "the" villain. Examples such as Michael Crichton's novel Disclosure, as well as Valiant Comics's original Unity miniseries come to mind (SPOILERS FOR VALIANT: In the latter, it comes down in the end to the male Solar stopping a female character named the Mothergod from ending the universe; END SPOILERS). It just seems to me that, with the advent of "Social Justice" and the momentum that feminism has taken on with that movement, there are a number of stories snowballing now—again, such as AVX wherein Hope treats people like shit and gets away with it; or John Scalzi's novel Old Man's War where the male protagonist approaches a woman who resembles his late wife, just to _talk_ to her, and she bullies him by driving into a table and gets away with it—a snowballing wherein female characters take on the power, but without the proverbial Spider-Man-ian "great responsibility" that comes with it. That includes accountability for unfavorable or even horrific acts that are perpetrated by them, and there is no such comeuppance that comes about, then IMO it must be invented by someone out there (even if it's not canon). Hence, the story above—again, not as a love letter to Lori or her baby, and certainly not to avenge a madman like the Governor—instead just out of a sense of karmic/cosmic balancing.

UPDATE AS OF 12/17/14: This evening I just read, honestly for the first time, The Walking Dead, Volume 14: No Way Out (this is the farthest I've reached so far in the comic series)...and in one scene towards the end, Rick...well, I can't say what he does without spoiling things, but it's pretty effing awful. As with Lilly and the Governor, here too Rick sets off something that to me begs for a vengeance similar to the one delivered in the above Lilly/Lori story. So to be totally fair, genderwise, I AM going to be writing, hopefully next month (January 2015), a companion to the story above in which Rick gets a similar, gory comeuppance. This is out of complete fairness, I feel, based on what I just read in No Way Out. Thanks for reading the above, in any case, and I hope to write this Rick story soon.


End file.
